IAFOR Journal of Asian Studies Volume 3 – Issue 1 – Summer 2017 LGBT Rights in Southeast Asia: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back? Cai Wilkinson, Deakin University, Australia Paula Gerber, Monash University, Australia Baden Offord, Curtin University, Australia Anthony J. Langlois, Flinders University, Australia Abstract Although in recent years many leading international actors, including the UN and European Union, have endorsed the idea that “LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] rights are human rights and human rights are LGBT rights” (Clinton, 2011), at the regional and national levels support is still far from guaranteed. The result is that while globally there has been significant progress in recognising the rights of LGBT people, at times assisted by and resulting in cultural transformation, there has also been an accompanying rise in both popular, religious and political homophobia in many states. These conflicting and frequently highly contradictory dynamics are particularly evident in Southeast Asia, where some great leaps forward in protecting the rights of LGBT people have occurred in parallel with substantial setbacks. For example, in late 2014, a Malaysian Appeals Court ruled that a ban on cross- dressing was unconstitutional, while a Singapore Court held that a law criminalising consensual same-sex conduct between men was constitutional. This paper explores the debates and trajectories of LGBT rights in Southeast Asia from four different perspectives in order to assess not only the overall state of LGBT rights in the region, but also to consider how further progress towards meaningful protection of LGBT rights can be achieved. Keywords: LGBT rights, human rights, SOGI rights, Southeast Asia 5 IAFOR Journal of Asian Studies Volume 3 – Issue 1 – Summer 2017 Introduction: Steps, Slips and Slides In recent years it has become axiomatic in international human rights discourse that, in Hillary Clinton’s (2011) words, “LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] rights are human rights and human rights are LGBT rights”. At the global level, the veracity of this statement would seem indubitable: the United Nations has firmly aligned itself with calls for LGBT equality via its Free & Equal campaign (www.unfe.org) and the UN Human Rights Council’s “landmark” September 2014 resolution condemning anti-gay bias (HRW, 2014a), as well as the appointment of an Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in 2016 (HRC 2016), while the EU formally adopted guidelines for supporting LGBT persons’ human rights in June 2013.1 At the national level, meanwhile, there also seems to be growing acceptance of LGBT rights: the US appointed the first-ever Special Envoy for the Human Rights of LGBT Persons in February 2015 (US Department of State, 2015), and sexual orientation and gender identity is explicitly included in anti-discrimination legislation in 70 countries, while same-sex marriage is now legal in approximately 20 countries, with a further 17 countries providing some form of legally recognized union for same-sex couples and 17 countries permitting same-sex couples to jointly adopt (Carroll & Itaborahy, 2015). The global view, therefore, would seem to confirm Kees Waaldjik’s (1994) hypothesis that there is an identifiable sequence of legislative developments that lead to legal recognition of homosexuality. Waaldjik’s model is based on the identification of a pattern of incremental and sequential steps observed in many European countries that have led to increasing legal recognition of homosexuality. As he describes: The law in most countries seems to be moving on a line starting at (0) total ban on homo-sex, then going through the process of (1) the decriminalisation of sex between adults, followed by (2) the equalisation of ages of consent, (3) the introduction of anti-discrimination legislation, and (4) the introduction of legal partnership. A fifth point on the line might be the legal recognition of homosexual parenthood (1994, pp. 51–52). Waaldjik acknowledges that this pattern is not without its issues, since countries do sometimes “take a step backwards”, or steps may be completed in a different order (1994, p. 52). Nonetheless, his conclusion is that “[t]here seems to be a general trend of progress; where there is legal change it is change for the better. Countries are not all moving at the same time and certainly not at the same speed, but they are moving in the same direction — forward” (p. 51). However, a closer look at the situation for LGBT people in any region of the world suggests that such optimism is premature and naïve at best, and downright misguided at worst. Firstly, the adoption of legislation does not automatically erase societal and political opposition to the recognition of homosexuality, and the assumption that where the law leads, society will follow is at the very least over-simplistic. Even in those countries or states where full legal equality has been achieved, LGBT people remain disproportionately likely than their heterosexual or cisgender2 counterparts to encounter prejudice or discrimination, with significant impacts on health and wellbeing (see for example Bauer et al., 2009; Pachankis et al., 2015). 1 See http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/EN/foraff/137584.pdf and http://www.eeas.europa.eu/human_rights/lgbt/index_en.htm. 2 Cisgender is an adjective used to describe “a person whose gender identity corresponds with the sex the person had or was identified as having at birth”. See https://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/cisgender. 6 IAFOR Journal of Asian Studies Volume 3 – Issue 1 – Summer 2017 Second, legal gains have often been accompanied by a corresponding intensification of resistance to the idea of recognizing the right of LGBT persons to be accorded the same rights as everyone else in both the societal and political spheres. This is arguably most clearly evident in the rise of political homophobia (Weiss & Bosia, 2013) and discourses of “traditional values” that seek to counter respect for the human rights of LGBT people (Wilkinson, 2014). This has caused a small but growing number of countries to consider following Russia’s example and adopt “anti-homopropaganda” laws (Carroll & Itaborahy, 2015, p. 32). It is also evident in the efforts of conservative religious groups such as the World Congress for Families and the National Organisation for Marriage to prevent or roll back legal gains (Kincaid, 2015; Nash & Browne, 2014; Zivi, 2014). Third, as Waaldjik himself has acknowledged (1994, 2009), it should not be assumed that the experience of European countries will be replicated in other parts of the world, given the diversity of factors that shape developments in any country at any time. Indeed, the Eurocentrism of the model has the potential to skew both expectations and interpretations, suggesting that there is a “right” way to achieve legal recognition, rather than developing strategies that are responsive to local contingencies and dynamics – something that in turn risks running afoul of arguments that the push for universal recognition of “gay rights” is a form of neocolonialist Western imperialism (Cheney, 2012; Massad, 2002). The salience of these criticisms of Waaldjik’s model is especially evident in Southeast Asia, where differences between countries in how the rights of LGBT people are dealt with are increasingly evident. At the regional level, the diversity of stances on LGBT rights is clearly seen in debates between member states over “Asian values” and especially in relation to the content of the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (Langlois, 2014), while at the national level approaches to LGBT issues have been exceptionally varied and often – on the surface, at least – seemingly contradictory. To take three recent examples: in late 2014, a Malaysian Appeals Court ruled that a ban on cross-dressing was unconstitutional (ABC News, 2014), yet a “morality raid” in Johor by Malaysia’s Islamic police in September 2014 resulted in the arrest of two women for allegedly having same-sex relations (Autostraddle, 2014). In Singapore, meanwhile, the constitutionality of a law criminalising consensual same-sex conduct between men was upheld in 2014 (HRW, 2014b), despite the fact that Pink Dot events in support of the LGBT community have been held annually since 2009 and attract tens of thousands of participants. Finally, India’s Supreme Court recriminalized homosexuality in 2013 (it having been decriminalized in 2009 by the High Court of Delhi), but the following year the Indian Government granted full legal recognition to hijras, creating a “third gender” category for official documents (Khaleeli, 2014). These examples, as well as extensive reports about the discrimination, marginalisation and violence experienced by LGBT people in the countries of Southeast Asia (UNDP, 2014 & 2015), point to the reality that, in practice, recognition of LGBT people’s human rights is uneven, incomplete and frequently contradictory and arbitrary, reflecting national, regional and international politics, as well as multiple intersecting dynamics of privilege and marginalisation. This in turn means that the utility of any one model for progress is limited, since it cannot account for all aspects of a complex and multifaceted situation. Indeed, any attempt to assess progress against milestones, as Waaldjik proposes, calls to mind the parable of the blind men and the elephant: one’s verdict largely depends on which part of the elephant one examines, as